Reilly sues Wilkerson over campaign finances

State Senator Dianne Wilkerson, her political career already marked by a federal tax conviction and other financial violations, was sued yesterday by Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly for numerous alleged campaign law violations from 2000 and 2001, including failure to report $26,935 in political donations and failure to explain $18,277 paid to her by her political committee.

The lawsuit filed by Reilly and the head of the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance said that the violations are ''more pervasive" than similar campaign finance violations in 1998 that led to an agreement in which Wilkerson paid $11,500 in civil penalties. The complaint also said that Reilly and the campaign finance office had given the Boston Democrat repeated opportunities to explain the more recent discrepancies in her campaign finance reports, but that she has been ''unable or unwilling to provide such information."

''The prolonged noncompliance of Wilkerson and the Committee with these requirements . . . has made it impossible for OCPF to determine, and for the citizens of the Commonwealth to ascertain, how and from whom Wilkerson, as a member of the Senate, raised campaign funds, and to whom and for what purposes the Committee paid those funds out," the complaint said.

The complaint alleges that the committee made 29 ''unexplained reimbursements" in 2000 and 2001 totaling $20,264, including more than $18,000 paid to Wilkerson personally and several hundred dollars to her son, Cornell Mills.

''These violations suggest that these reimbursements may have been for personal use," the complaint said.

Reilly and campaign finance office director Michael J. Sullivan asked that a judge order Wilkerson to pay the money to the state out of her own pocket. It also asks that her campaign be prohibited from reimbursing Wilkerson for spending in the future.

The complaint also alleges that Wilkerson's committee made 19 more expenditures that did not include sufficient information explaining the reason for the spending, as required by campaign finance law. The payments included $15,550 in ''consulting fees," including $4,872 to Wilkerson's two sons.

The complaint also alleges that numerous illegal corporate and political action committee contributions and donations were never properly recorded in the Wilkerson committee's campaign reports that are publicly filed with the state.

Wilkerson, first elected in 1992, declined a request yesterday for an interview. Her committee released a statement saying its lawyer, Thomas R. Kiley, has not had time to review the civil complaint that was filed yesterday in Suffolk Superior Court.

''We are confident that the outstanding matters will be fully resolved with complete and sufficient documentation," the statement reads. ''Most of the requested documentation listed in the complaint has already been submitted to the Attorney General. We look forward to resolving this matter expeditiously." The statement did not elaborate on the documentation that Wilkerson's committee had submitted.

Wilkerson's most recent problems follow nearly a decade of similar allegations of mismanagement of her political funds, a foreclosure proceeding on her house, a tax charge, and her failure to pay dozens of parking tickets.

The most serious problem occurred in 1997, when she was sentenced to serve six months house detention and pay a $2,000 fine after pleading guilty to four misdemeanor criminal charges for failing to file federal income taxes totaling $51,000 between 1991 and 1994. She was allowed to attend Senate sessions, but faced a nightly deadline to return home.

In 1998, Wilkerson faced similar charges by the campaign finance office and the attorney general's office involving allegations of unexplained expenditures and undisclosed PAC contributions. In an agreement, she and her committee agreed to pay back unaccounted expenditures and to pay $11,500 in civil penalties.

The latest allegations stem from campaign finance problems that had not previously surfaced in public, though the campaign finance office had been in frequent communication with Wilkerson's committee to clear up the discrepancies since 2002. The negotiations continued until August, according to the lawsuit, when Wilkerson told the state that ''we have discovered a very large leather satchel of documents . . . left by Ajibola Osinubi, all related to the year 2000." Osinubi is her former campaign treasurer, who left in 2002.

Beyond the legal aspects, the civil complaint has strong political implications. Reilly, a Democrat who is running for governor, is taking on one of the state's more prominent African-American politicians, who, despite her financial woes and her federal tax conviction, has faced virtually no serious opposition in her reelection bids.

Yesterday, Reilly and his staff made clear that he had attempted to work out an agreement with Wilkerson to avoid a lawsuit. ''These are extremely rare," said David Guarino, Reilly's spokesman, referring to the lawsuit. He said it is the first of its kind in Reilly's two terms in office.

Because there are still questions about how much money was spent and for what, it is not clear what potential fines Wilkerson faces. Each violation of the campaign finance laws provides for up to a $1,000 fine. Guarino said fines are a ''secondary interest," and full accounting of how the money was spent is the primary interest of the suit.

In a statement released yesterday, Reilly laid the blame squarely on Wilkerson for failing to cooperate with his office for several years in its investigation of her campaign finances.

''After repeated attempts by OCPF and my office to have the senator clear up the discrepancies in her campaign account, it became clear that she was not going to do so," he said.

The latest financial issue probably will not damage her political standing in her district or among African-American leaders, said Horace Small, director of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods, a social action organization in Roxbury.

Instead, Small said, the community is likely to ''circle the wagons" because her Boston district feels Wilkerson has proven to be a very effective representative for the state's minority communities.